The mother of a young man who died of a drug overdose in 2012 said she’s happy police have laid charges against a suspect, but said she’s angry it took a complaint against police to get the investigation moving.

Ryan Good, 21, was found unresponsive in an Eastern Passage home on Dec.10, 2012, and pronounced dead in hospital.

“You feel odd, because it’s at the expense of your son’s death that this happiness is coming from,” Trine Lise Good, Ryan’s mother, said March 19.

“It’s like ‘Wow, this is what makes me happy now?”

No charges were initially laid in Good’s death due to “insufficient evidence,” said Insp. Trish MacCormack of the RCMP/ Halifax Regional Police criminal investigation division.

She said new information came to light after Trine Good filed a complaint over the police handling of the case last August.

Ryan Good’s file was re-opened and MacCormack said a review of all the evidence led to this week's charges.

Trine Good said she had asked police immediately to lay charges, claiming a relative had admitted to sharing Dilaudid with Ryan.

“That’s trafficking, and that’s what I’ve said all along and no one listened until I filed a complaint,” she said.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Amy Graves, an advocate against prescription drug abuse from Kings County, said the resistance Trine Good encountered from police shows the need for better education about the relatively new charge of trafficking in connection with a prescription medication overdose.

“No loved one should have to investigate their own son or daughter’s death,” Graves said.

Trine Good said she hopes that police officers will start to treat all overdoses as suspicious until proven otherwise.

“I’ve done what I can so far,” Trine Good said. “Now it’s time for me to concentrate on my family and Ryan.”

Bordage is set to appear in court on May 7 and the public complaint investigation is still ongoing.